Bitter Cold Cancels Winter Activities Throughout Twin Cities

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The ice was ready and the boards were up, but on Thursday night, there wasn't any hockey played on Lake Nokomis.

"When we were looking at wind chills of 20, 25, 30 below. It's just not safe for us to send out our mostly 5- to 10-year-old participants," Jim Dahline, spokesperson for the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, said.

Event organizers put a hard freeze on Thursday's Youth Night because of the dangerously chilly weather. It was a tough call, but Dahline said they would rather deal with the cold than with the mild weather they had last year.

"Ultimately, it's a hockey tournament and it is hockey the way nature intended it. At the end of the day, the ice conditions are paramount to the experience of everyone coming down here," he said.

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Over in St. Paul, the Winter Carnival had to cancel its kickoff Moon Glow parade, which was set to take place on Thursday night as well.

"Frost bite is the biggest concern for us," Deb Schaber, of the St. Paul Festival & Heritage Foundation, said.

This is the first time this has happened in more than a decade. The 10-day festival celebrates everything icy with the majority of events happening outdoors, but the cold wind chills forced a change of plans.

"Right now, it's negative 25, either temp or wind chill is kind of what we are looking at and that's based on a lot of different factors as well," Schaber said.

The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory for most of the state of Minnesota. That lasts through lunchtime on Friday.